


Suited and Booted

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [40]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Identity Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5423132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the red velvet coat. (Set during "Face the Raven")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suited and Booted

**Author's Note:**

> for anon, who requested: an explanation for why the hell the red velvet happened after a series worth of space hobo

He can’t pinpoint when it happened. Which is frustrating, because he prides himself on keeping a detailed calendar of all the important things. Of noticing them when they happen, or when they announce their approach. It’s sort of in his job description, after all. But he has no concrete memory of this. Where the tipping point was.

Doesn’t even collect all the feelings into fact until he’s peeling off the day’s clothes and putting on things he hasn’t touched in months. Starch-stiff and cold, collar biting into his neck. He used to like that bite. Used to need it, nearly; his suit of armor, the clean severe front he chose to present. The keep-away sign hung on his door, the assumed identity, the cape and cowl. 

People were difficult. People required an iron grip on his tongue which frankly he was not all that interested in maintaining. People were there to be impressed and protected, possibly brushed aside, possibly brought as close to him as he could afford. People were exhausting and people could not know who he was, who he really was. He has a legend to uphold. And he’s done it for as long as he can remember, even before his ego and sense of self-importance got out of control, all those untold centuries ago, accidentally winding up in a junk yard and feeling that very first tug of the universe at his soul. The first time he ever felt small.

So coats and ties and scarves and spats. So a sartorial elegance, or an aggravating joke, or a calculatedly-carefree tilt of his hat. So a costume, the costume of a person he’d very much like to be. Would at least like to be seen as. He’d slid into the black and blue and blood-red like a knife going into a sheath. And he’d thought, for a while, that was who he was meant to be. Or should be. Or - something.

And then, at some point, he’d stopped caring. At some point, he’d started chafing. So why bother, really? Because at some point, Clara had stopped being _other people_. She’d seen so completely past his facade that there was no reason to keep pretending. She was what mattered and it didn’t matter to her what he wore. She’d only ever seen Clark Kent, which at some point he noticed, and then gradually he’d understand that being Clark Kent was more important than being Superman, that living in the Fortress of Solitude wasn’t all that fun. And he’d slipped, let himself get comfortable. History might come to regard that as a mistake, but it felt nice to just, for once, not give a damn.

Something about today felt different. Maybe it was Rigsy - did he want to impress Rigsy? Or feel compelled to live up to the story of the man he’d been, that he’d left behind? Or just a slight embarrassment at the light being shone on him, revealing the scruffy unkempt mess he’d let himself become. And/or had always been.

Maybe something else. He’s been getting better at ignoring his free-floating dread, though. But still: the need to put his walls back up. Cuff links and waistcoat and boots tied tight. Giving a damn again about what other people thought of him, dressing up as the man who fights the monsters. The assumed identity hanging heavy, closing around him in an almost reassuring way. The universe feeling a little safer, a little colder, a little further away.

He straightens his lapels one last time, and steps out into the streets of London.


End file.
